Pattie’s Story
Introduction
“What a wonderful year 1954 has been…I started going with Tony, fell in love and got engaged. This has been the best year of my life. May there be many more” – Patricia (Pattie) Davey
72 years after this diary entry was written, Pattie and her daughter Carol welcomed me to afternoon tea at Pattie’s place in Canberra to talk about life in Wagga. Carol is Tony’s eldest daughter.
This is a glimpse into Pattie’s life as a Wagga Girl.
25th April, 2026
The king parrots were dancing around the botanic gardens, adding flares of red to the early morning rays that were only just finding the ground beneath me. I was on my way to meet Pattie, and boy I was nervous…
It was my first interview for this project, and while I hoped in my heart this project would bring happiness to people, I was worried that if I made a mistake along the way I might do the opposite. My worst nightmare. The rainforest gave me a hug, and sent me on my way down the charming country roads of Ngunnawal country; a far prettier drive than the rat race of my beloved Redfern, I confess…
Pattie is about a foot shorter than me, with about two feet more style.
Sharp-witted, open-minded and gracious, Pattie welcomed me into her lovely home to talk about growing up in postwar Wagga Wagga.
It just so happened her daughter Carol was visiting, and it didn’t take us long to discover we live on the same street. In Redfern! 450km from home, and the Wagga girls are never far away…
Pattie kept a diary, and would later use this to collate her story for her family and for posterity. I was very humbled that Pattie chose to share this story with me, and when we sat down to chat I was delighted to see the connections to my own life as a Wagga girl – riding bikes, swimming at the river, and enjoying what the Wagga social scene had to offer.
The three of us had a cuppa and chatted for a few hours about life in Wagga. To hear Carol’s experiences as well as Pattie’s was a cherry on top of a lovely afternoon! My family are not originally from Wagga, and I can find it difficult to connect with my past sometimes, so this was a very special time for me to understand more about life in the place I call my hometown.
We are three Wagga Girls from very different times, and I was so excited to learn more about Pattie’s experience growing up in the Riverina.
Growing up in the Riverina
“Mum told stories of a very hot season in Ariah Park the summer Peter was born and trying to keep babies cool. She told a story about someone going around in a car with a loudspeaker calling for volunteers to fan the babies”
Pattie tells us that the Ariah Park hospital was only open for about 12 months, which makes Pattie very unique; one of maybe a handful of people with “Ariah Park” listed as their birthplace. A search showed me that Ariah Park is listed as a NSW Baby Health Centre site in this wonderful 1989 publication from NSW Health, celebrating “100 Years of Child and Family Health Services in NSW”.
“The information was retrieved from histories sent to the New South Wales Department of Health or on the basis of verbal advice. The list is incomplete and some dates may not be accurate due to records being destroyed or lost in floods or fire.” (NSW Health, 1989)
This the only record I could find of the Ariah Park Hospital, and the Riverina community is no stranger to both fires and floods. Pattie recalls that;
“Almost every year...it was very bad floods. Like, my brother and I used to think it was great fun wading through it waist-high deep, through the flood waters, in the summer, obviously.“
This reminded me of the importance of preserving history and acknowledgement of the contribution of the women who came before us. I imagined the men toiling away in the heat to build the hospital, the nurses who left their families and travelled in from other towns to work there, the expectant Mums like Kathleen, anxiously waiting for the arrival of the bub, and the disappointment for the town when the centre closed as quickly as it opened.
(Source: Public domain scan of the vintage New South Wales, Australia)
Pattie and her family moved to Wagga the first time in 1939 where she attended St Mary’s public school, on the grounds of what is now Kildare Catholic college (or Mt Erin for the Wagga Girls my age). Pattie’s Dad was in the army, and after a wartime wound in Katherine, Edwin was posted to Kenmore military hospital, just outside of Goulburn that was occupied by the military during the war.
Just like the hostel at 38 Morrow St, the asylum was utilised by the military during World War II, and was handed back to the NSW Department of Health in 1946. Patients from the asylum had been relocated in 1941 to “various mental institutions in Sydney”, and “gradually moved back” in 1946. By 1949 the hospital was “once again overcrowded” (Goulburn Mulwaree Development Control Plan, 2009)
(Source: Kenmore Hospital Museum image 2010 49c)
Pattie would return to Wagga in 1948 at the age of 12, moving with her parents and 3 siblings…and an entire new family headed up by Auntie Connie. 14 people sharing the same roof must have been a fun time when getting ready for school!
“On the terribly hot Wagga nights most of us slept out on the verandah or lawns, finding it more comfortable to battle the mosquitoes than to sleep inside the hot house”
When Pattie says it was terribly hot she’s not kidding – the highest recorded temperature in Wagga was the year Pattie first moved there; 47.2 in January 1939!
How fortunate that Wagga hugs the mighty Murrumbidgee River, a beautiful body of water that is sure to cool you down on the hottest days of the year!
The River
” The river was the place. All the teenagers gathered there.”
Despite the jokes about the Wagga Beach and the infamous 5 o’clock wave, the Murrumbidgee river remains a central part of life in Wagga for many young people and their families. Pattie recounted weekends spent with Dot and others riding bikes to the river, as far as Yarragundry, some 13 miles (20 km) out of town!
When I asked if the bikes had gears Pattie was quick to clarify that the boys did most of the work, and she usually delegated the hard work of pedalling in the Wagga summer heat to the blokes.
[Image Courtesy of Charles Sturt University Regional Archives, via Facebook group Lost Wagga Wagga]
“Monday 4 January 1954 – Got a letter from Chris 8 pages very interesting. Answered Don’s letter. Went swimming with Dot, who tried to teach me to dive (with about 20 other people) however I have no confidence. Had a drink with Tony after and ride to the YWCA”
The Wagga Show
The Wagga Show was another staple of Wagga life, and Pattie’s family was very lucky to live opposite the showground, much to the envy of her friends:
“The Wagga Show was one of the highlights of our life. We would save up for ever and get dressed in our best clothes, sometimes even getting new clothes for the occasion.”
In our chats I loved to hear that that tradition had spanned generations. Pattie’s daughter Carol also reminisced about her fondness for the show:
“Oh, yeah, four of us girls got new outfits every year. Our hometown got the show was a major part of our growing up.”
Naturally we had a laugh at the hotly contested origins of the Chiko Roll, which was debuted at the Wagga Show by Bendigo man Frank McEncroe in 1951.
[Source: The Guardian]
“Today is a Historic Day for Australia. The Queen landed in Sydney. We listened to the broadcast at work“
The Queens Visit was a major event in Wagga Wagga, and Pattie and her brother decorated the window of the family show for the occasion. “God knows how bad it was” Pattie laughed. The Davey family grocery store was on Fitzmaurice St, and Pattie and Peter helped out with everything from decorating, cleaning up after the floods, and selling biscuits to the local kids:
“You’d have tins of this biscuit, this biscuit, and the ones that were broken were put into bags, it’s all a penny, bag of broken biscuits.”
An entrepreneurial duo, Pattie and Dot decided they would offer babysitting services to the local families who wanted to go and see the Queen, so they advertised their services in the local paper.
“We only got one child. So we did actually end up seeing the queen. We sort of went with the child to not too far away, where the Queen came, and we saw her.”
A bit of pocket money and a view of the Queen! Not bad for a day’s work.
Night Life
[Image Courtesy of Charles Sturt University Regional Archives]
Pattie was about 17 when she met Dot at the Catholic Youth Club. I remembered my own days at the CYC in Wagga Wagga, and made a joke about going there just to meet boys. I was glad to see some things that stood the test of time – the desire for romance!
Erin: “I mean, we were mostly just there to meet the boys. That’s what Catholic Youth Club’s for, isn’t it?”
Pattie: “Yes. That’s exactly what it was for. That’s what the girls thought it was for, and probably what the boys thought it was for.”
Pattie recalled a date she had with Tony, a Liverpudlian truck driver she met through her job at Paddy Power’s Transport in 1953. I was fascinated about what dating and romance was like in Wagga Wagga, and had a good giggle when Pattie mentioned her first date with Tony at Sorlie’s Revue, which Pattie described as a “great big circus tent they put up in a paddock somewhere”.
“They travelled around, very vaudeville, that sort of thing. People dressed in tails and things and dancing, and lots and lots of dirty jokes, which was quite embarrassing, though, for my first date. In those days dirty jokes were a real no-no.”
[Image Courtesy of Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales]
Pattie and Tony’s romance blossomed, and when her other suitors, Don and Chris returned to Wagga, Pattie described how she ended the romances with a level of pragmatism that I wish I’d had at that age.
“By the time Don and Chris returned I was going out with Tony on a steady basis and told them I wouldn’t be seeing them again. Don was particularly upset (of course my favourite of the two was Chris, a very nice looking young man who no doubt quickly replaced me with someone else).”
As someone who grew up in the nineties I only had an image of social life for young girls in the fifties as it was presented to me by media, and had incorrectly assumed that parties were a chaperoned, very tame affair back then. I learned that Pattie and her friends were partying at establishments like The Half until far later than I’d imagined!
The Half Holiday Club
“Where the good dancers were jiving and rock and rolling”
[Image courtesy of Charles Sturt University Regional Archives]
“Dot and I spent the day cooking, cleaning and arranging games for the party…We went down to ‘Half’ first and came back here for the party. We had a super time and it was quite a success. The party finished about 1/4 to 3 and Tony left about half past 3. Got a letter from Don.”
Wonderland Theatre was another well-loved hangout for the Wagga Girls. Established in the 1920’s by Irishman John Blair, the theatre was home to plays, debutante balls, films and dances for almost 50 years. There is little historical records on the theatre, but a wonderful article from Rebekah Lei of the Charles Sturt University Regional archives tells us that Wonderland Lane, behind the Sturt Mall, was named after the theatre at “the urging of the locals”.
Pattie recalls attending dances at Wonderland with Dot, and “a marvellous source of young boys – the young RAAF apprentices from Forest Hill, the nearby Air Force training base.”
Read more about Blair’s Wonderland Theatre here
A production of Arsenic and Old Lace was presented by the School of Arts Players at the Wonderland Theatre in 1947 (Image Courtesy of Charles Sturt University Regional Archives)
Work Life
Pattie was obviously not a big fan of school, because in her youth she and brother Peter tried to burn the school at Yarranjerry down!
“Peter and I decided we would try and burn the school down (grand-children please don’t copy!). We lit a fire in dry grass near the school and hoped it would burn down.“
Fortunately they did not succeed, and Pattie finished her schooling doing Fourth Year Commercial at Mt Erin High School under the tutelage of Sister Benedicta ‘Benny’.
Sister Benedicta was both loved and feared by her students at Mt Erin. There are lots of beautiful comments here on this Facebook post. In fact, there is even a horse named after her!
Sisters Carmel Clancy, Benedicta and Judith Baz are pictured here at the Pope’s visit in 1970.
[Image Courtesy of Mt Erin Heritage Centre]
Pattie was a pioneer for Riverina women in the workplace. As the first woman to ever work at the Wagga police station, I was delighted to hear Pattie talk about this experience with great joy and fondness. It’s a welcome departure from some of the awful situations women in the workplace endured during this period, and Pattie’s boss, Geoff Swan, became like a father to her:
“He took me under his wing, and he and his wife used to take me down to their farm, and they had four or five children. I just loved it. They were so good to me”
Pattie would then go on to open her own business in Canberra; one of the first conference management businesses in Australia:
“I was working for the Academy of Science, they used to do scientific conferences, and I started doing those, and I had the laziest boss in the world. If you had him as a boss you did the work, you know. He did nothing but he got all the credit.”
In her retirement Pattie continues to enjoy spending time with her daughters cruising round the world, and living a peaceful life at the foot of the Brindabella Ranges.
Thank you Pattie. Your generosity and trust in me means everything.
Authors Note:
All quotes you see here are from Pattie herself, unless otherwise noted.
No AI was used in the production of this story.
It is not my intention to write my own stories into the book itself, however I wanted to share a little about the journey behind curating these amazing stories here on the website. Pattie’s story in the published version of the book will be her story alone.